Okay, this is fucked up.

[pinback]

Okay. Okay. So you've read my latest entry and caught up on current events. So you know that I'm fine. I'm okay with life. Neighbor or no, I'm the calm little center of the universe, and all that bullshit.

Okay.

So, my neighbor's in town with her jailbird boyfriend (or whatever they are), and I've kept the fan on 24/7, as I'd promised, to drown out whatever noises I might not have wanted to hear, and in fact which I can't hear anyway, given the construction of this building, so it's more of an artistic gesture than anything.

But it's Friday night. Friday night's my night to howl, alcoholic or not.

I spend the early evening over at my other neighbor Dawn ("Dark Meat")'s house, enjoying her first foray into the exciting world of Chinese cooking (see how I tie the Sex and the Cooki-- oh wait, that's the other base), and it was excellent. She offered to play a movie for us, but as her movie collection consists of Blade Runner and about 14 Japanses import anime VHS tapes, I bid my adieu and head out on the town.

First stop was the Reef. This is my favorite Boulder hangout, because it's so stupid. Not stupid in a "so bad it's good" way, but stupid in a "so good it's good" way. Two brilliant musicians at the pianos, and actually entertaining while they're playing. I mean, tonight, they had some skaggy broad up there with a cowbell, while one of them shouts, "I got a fever... And the only prescription... is more cowbell!!" You can't buy that kind of entertainment, folks. Providing you pay the $3 cover charge.

But the Reef is for funloving crowds, not martini-loving loners. So I bust out.

And meaning to turn for home, I "accidentally" miss the exit, and keep going to Louisville, to prop myself up at their venerable bar and hoist a few. The crowd is normal Friday-night fare. Drunk college doofuses. Off-shift bartenders grabbing freebies from their buds behind the bar.

Off-shift waitresses.

One of them (let's call her, "Linda", what with that being her name) comes up to the bar next to me and signals her boy at the taps, looking for a handout. He gladly obliges, as Linda is not the sort of woman -- let's say, girl -- who is often denied free drinks, I am guessing.

But she looks... she looks like...

Fuck. Who is it that she looks like? I narrow it down to two huge broad (heh) categories: Someone I knew once, or somebody famous.

It's a particular look. This woman, this girl, this famous person, or this person I once knew, has this look. The high ("Parrish") forehead. The slightly jutting chin. The lower lip forward of the upper one, ensuring no braces or retainers would ever be necessary. Sharp features, but a face which is never anything but expressive, even when it's not expressing anything. A full face. Not a classic beauty, but more a modern one. It's hard to describe.

I narrowed it down, just in time, to a famous person who I could not recall. I continue, even at this late hour, and after these last few late hours, to not be able to recall who it is. God, it's killing me. Sort of.

She sits down with her buddies at a cocktail table, chats away, drinks away, and I stare straight ahead, Avery IPA in hand, half my face reflected back to me from the overhead bar mirror. One eye. One cheek. One half receding hairline.

Every once in a while, I peek over.

Who the fuck is that? Who does she look like? I don't get it.

Then.

Then, she comes over next to me to order another freebie from the venerable barkeep. She gives him the little "fist bump" thing that people do nowadays because they're afraid of the horrendous intimacy implied by a simple handshake.

She gets her drink. She begins to turn away.

And friends, I swear to you know, with several Reef martinis in me and a couple more Avery IPAs, I stopped her.

I said, trying as always to sound confident, "Excuse me. I'm sorry to interrupt (erp), but... does anyone ever tell you you look like somebody famous?"

A nervous sideways glance, and I begin to feel the walls close in around me again.

"What?"

"Oh. I just... I thought you looked like somebody famous, or somebody I once knew or something, and... I dunno, I wondered if anyone ever said you looked like somebody famous, an actress or something, because I..." I don't remember the rest of this tortured sentence. It's too horrific to recall anyway. And pointless. Whatever. Flamout, crash and burn.

She excused herself and went back to her table.

Another Avery IPA. A shot of Bacardi.

Through my half face, my one eye, my half hairline, I continued to glance in the overhead mirror at her table every once in a while. Who was that? Who did she look like?

I checked once. ...oh, right on the tip of my tongue. She was in that... that movie with... shit.

I checked again... Was it the other daughter in Pieces of April? No, fuck, that was that obnoxious blonde. Who the hell is she? FUCK.

I checked again... And somehow, rather than noticing her this time, I noticed that her colleagues had left the bar. On to greener pastures. And there she sat, sipping her whatever-it-was, all by herself.

If I was a stronger man, I'd make a move here.

If I was a stronger man, I'd go over there.

If I was a s---

"Hey there."

Well. Well, no shit.

"Hi."

And, on my mother's grave, who isn't dead yet, so she doesn't have a grave yet, and she'll probably be creammated anyway, but if she had a grave, and I had a religion on which to swear, I would swear on my mother's grave that she said this:

"Did you figure out who I look like yet?"

All of the upstairs neighbors in the world, that I've ever had, from Arlington to Germantown to Vancouver to Woodland Hills to North Brunswick to Gaithersburg to Alexandria to Boynton Beach to West Palm Beach to Santa Monica to Boulder, Colorado, and I couldn't name a goddamn one of them at this point, or anything they'd ever done to me. Did I figure out who she looked like to me?

"I did not. I'm still trying, though."

"What movie was she in?"

I cannot believe this conversation is actually happening. If I knew myself better, I'd say I was making the whole thing up. "I... I can't... Ugh! It's driving me crazy!"

And she sat down at the bar.

They never sit down at the bar.

They never ask me what movie they were in.

You want me to recount to you the rest of the evening? You want me to recall the 45 minutes, hour and a half, whatever it was conversation that we drunkenly muddled through after that?

You want me to recount the giddy suggestion that she hop in the Chevy Prizm and we go for a ride, half a few smokes, have a few laughs?

You want me to recount trying to navigate the streets of my new home town, with Bacardi Superior coursing through my veins, and one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen sitting RIGHT THERE in the seat beside me, asking me if I lived around here?

You want me to recall me opening the door here in front of P297 to let her in?

You want me to recall the rest?

I cannot.

I don't know what happened.

I mean, I know what happened.

But these are the things you read about. That your friends tell you happened to them.

The things that they make up, to make you feel better.

She just left, twenty minutes ago, when I started writing this. You know, you've been with me through so much, I just couldn't wait to tell you.

A little bush-league, I'll admit. But goddamn.

33 years old. Giddy as a schoolboy. Don't want to go to sleep because I'm too happy with life. A little drunk.

I only wish...

I only wish I could remember who she looks like.

[AArdvark]

This reminds me of that Charlie Brown special when he cuts loose on the little red-headed girl but the next day can't remember a thing about it. luckily, we all have computers and can glance into the innermost thoughts of Pinner and his mystery encounter. Please look through Hollywood who's who and tell us who she looks like



THE
THAT'S A GOOD
LINE, MAY I USE IT
AARDVARK

[chris]

I only wish...

I only wish I could remember who she looks like.

Bea Arthur.



Seriously, glad to hear your evening went so well.

[Knuckles the CLown]

I'm confused, did you have sex and was it with the blond girl or black girl l. I read through all of that drivel and there's no payoff. Anyhow I'm guessing your junior high lunch lady bears a close remsembles to Mrs. Twidledinks.